That's a dangerous way to look at bottlenecking. In this case, even a QX9650 will bottleneck any video card. What you're actually seeing is solely your CPU score in 3DMark go up, and hence, your overall score in 3DMark goes up. Just because your score goes up once you overclock doesn't mean you're un-bottlenecking your graphics card! I've gone over this before. Trust me, that Opteron will NOT bottleneck the graphics card. It MIGHT run a little slow on CPU-bound games but most games aren't anyway. There'd have to be a decent gap in age between your CPU and GPU before you notice any real bottlenecking.

Back on topic, I'd donate something, but the only spare part I have is a super crappy Aopen Sound card that's not worth the shipping. When I make my new build I'll order something cool for you, but not too expensive. Maybe an HSF?

yes i am aware that as you overclock (your cpu) the cpu score goes up and hence the overall score goes up. but i beg to differ that it is SOLELY a gain in the cpu score. and no, by my argument a qx9650 would not bottleneck any graphics card...but, i dont have one of those to prove it.
but, i do have my trusty 3600...
look at these two scores from my own system. the ONLY difference in the test rig is that the cpu is at 2.95 and the other is 3.06. the card settings are exactly the same.Futuremark - ORB - Result AnalyzerFuturemark - ORB - Result Analyzer
if the cpu was not bottlenecking the card, all the scores would be the same except the small increase in cpu score, correct? they are not. all the scores go up.
so, my point here is that while you may not NOTICE the bottleneck in real world gaming, it IS there. it certainly will be there running TWO of these cards in SLI with an opteron. dont get me wrong, it will be rockin performance no doubt.
but, i dont place too much hash on benchmarks anyways...even 3dmark.
i say if you're spittin 100+ FPS in your new games who cares whats bottlenecking what.
p.s. whats "dangerous" about that?>,>

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"nagasama no longer drinks tecate, or streaks out of the night for anything, and he has a fine wife so he has no use for your girlfriend...she is safe..."

lol just get the card and put it in SLI bro..it will be kick butt no doubt about it .
like you said, the only time you will have a noticeable bottleneck is in benchmarking, so who really cares about that? your games will run AWESOME. mine run fabulously with only one.

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"nagasama no longer drinks tecate, or streaks out of the night for anything, and he has a fine wife so he has no use for your girlfriend...she is safe..."

nagasama, i love your avatar. lol. and yeah, bottlenecking is over rated unless you have an older system. IMO

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Don't worry about it... we're not donating the system (cuz i asked em not to.. cuz their system will stop me from a Intel Core 2 Quad q9450 or Phenom 9600)

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yes i am aware that as you overclock (your cpu) the cpu score goes up and hence the overall score goes up. but i beg to differ that it is SOLELY a gain in the cpu score. and no, by my argument a qx9650 would not bottleneck any graphics card...but, i dont have one of those to prove it.
but, i do have my trusty 3600...
look at these two scores from my own system. the ONLY difference in the test rig is that the cpu is at 2.95 and the other is 3.06. the card settings are exactly the same.Futuremark - ORB - Result AnalyzerFuturemark - ORB - Result Analyzer
if the cpu was not bottlenecking the card, all the scores would be the same except the small increase in cpu score, correct? they are not. all the scores go up.
so, my point here is that while you may not NOTICE the bottleneck in real world gaming, it IS there. it certainly will be there running TWO of these cards in SLI with an opteron. dont get me wrong, it will be rockin performance no doubt.
but, i dont place too much hash on benchmarks anyways...even 3dmark.
i say if you're spittin 100+ FPS in your new games who cares whats bottlenecking what.
p.s. whats "dangerous" about that?>,>

Lol, sorry about the "dangerous" sometimes I like to use dramatic wording even in simple conversation. I usually talk about politics and the subject matter is usually a lot more serious. Like rather than saying "you lose performance" I'd say "the performance suffers". It's just my thing.

As for the bottlenecking, you've got a good point. But also remember that your 3DMark will never stay consistently the same even if you keep your specs the same. It'll fluctuate up and down.